I'm 22, Norwegian and I've been vegan for a little more than a year, and I was vegetarian for two years before that. My decisions concerning this has nothing whatsoever to do with health. I am in it for the animals and to a lesser extent, the environment, but I've realized that I perhaps should care more about my health.

I used to weigh around 330 at 6'3", and six or seven months after I went vegan I stepped on a scale for the first time in probably eight months and the display read 290. I hadn't noticed at all, and I had made no effort whatsoever to eat less. This sort of made me realize that I could lose weight; That I didn't have to have this body. This was about 45 days ago, and as of yesterday I was at 265 pounds. All I did was start tracking my food on myfitnesspal.com, and since then I've probably been eating 1800 to 1900 calories a day on average, with some days going as low as 1200, and others going as high as 2400 (I will never stop doing pizza fridays). My macros are somewhere around 55/25/20 but fluctuate depending mostly on what I eat for dinner (tofu scramble and veggies means more protein and less carbs, pasta/rice/pizza means more carbs and less fat).

Anyway, food is not the issue (I think), rather I should get into exercising, and that's why I'm here. I'll start off with saying that I'm not concerned with the bodybuilding aspect of this site. Even if I should be lucky enough to not have too much loose skin once I hit a weight which I'm comfortable with, I don't really care about having those killer abs/having to be careful not to rip my shirt arms when flexing, I just want to be at a point where I don't feel as though I'm severely limited by what my body is able to do. This is my main motivation for becoming more fit. I don't care about how much I am able to lift at the gym or how many marathons I am able to do in a year, I care about how much difficulty life will pose for me. I want to be able to go hiking, do tree logging, bike to the beach, or anywhere for that matter.

I would say that I am fairly strong. Being overweight naturally gives your body a bigger workout just by moving around, or at least it feels that way. I grew up on a farm where I sometimes had to help with carrying heavy stuff, where I still work sometimes, and I've never felt that my strength has been lacking in terms of how much I can lift. Nevertheless, I would like to improve, mostly in endurance, but also, obviously, in general strength. I've looked into Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe, which seems to be a very level-headed intro to weightlifting.

Ask me to run five minutes, and I would probably look at you, embarrassed, and try to figure out some reason why that's a silly request. During the summer, I walk the thirty minutes to my dad instead of biking because going up those hills on a bike freaking kills me. Needlessly to say, I want to change this. Noteworthy here is that I have a knee that's prone to "semi-dislocate" (it pops halfway out and then in again in one move), so I've been advised that I shouldn't run regularly on hard surfaces, at least not until I hit a healthier weight. The cold, dry winter air makes outdoor exercise painful when you breath as heavily as I do exercising anyway, so some gym cardio is cool with me.

A last piece of information. I won't start hitting the gym before next year. I've made this decision so that I don't end up making upcoming exams an excuse for not exercising, and thus getting a poor start at the whole thing. Maybe this is silly, but I know that I'm just that much more likely to keep making excuses if I don't get a proper start.

Anyway, if you have any tips and tricks on hitting the gym, or, for that matter, healthy eating, please do share. If you have any questions, please ask them.

Last edited by imnotapunk on Wed Dec 05, 2012 5:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

I like your reason for starting hitting the gym. I felt the same, in a way that I want to have a body that is strong enough to do whatever I want.Years ago I met some girls from Norway, I remember some pictures that they showed us, beautiful country, man.